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From: rcd@nbires.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Newman Energy Machine
Message-ID: <482@opus.nbires.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Jul-86 03:01:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.482
Posted: Fri Jul 25 03:01:37 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Jul-86 07:37:13 EDT
References: <1915@milano.UUCP>
Organization: NBI,Inc, Boulder CO
Lines: 43
Summary: testers say it doesn't work

> Anyone heard anything recently about the Joe Newman "Energy Machine".
> The last I saw, he had a hearing scheduled for last February to
> argue that the Patent Office should give him a patent...

Science News recently reported that the organization (from NBS, if memory
serves) which was testing his machine finally reported...the efficiency of
his machine was rather difficult to measure given the spike-y nature of the
output, but they eventually concluded that it was substantially less than
100%.

Newman's reported reaction was predictable--an attack on the character,
biases, etc., of the organization studying his machine, rather than on the
merits of their investigation per se.  He or his lawyer (I forget) was even
quoted as noting bias in the investigating organization because someone had
claimed that his machine could not work, before having seen it.  (The clod
who said this was no doubt just parroting some of that obsolete scientific
orthodoxy about thermodynamic laws...:-)

There was also a note that the investigation of the energy machine had been
rather expensive and there would be some attempt to get Newman to pay for
the investigation.  (My opinion:  Given the amount of litigation thus far,
it would seem reasonable to ask him to pay if his machine doesn't work.  I
think that the Patent Office probably has to deal with enough inventors
whose inventions are out in left field without having to deal with a suit
every time they deny a patent for a device that claims to violate accepted
physical principles.  A precedent is needed here.)

> All the best people have claimed his machine is a hoax, but he's also
> got some qualified folks sticking up for him...

In addition to some qualified people, according to Science News he's got
some Congresscritters sticking up for him--some bimbo introduced a bill
attempting to force the Patent Office to give him a patent!  (Think
carefully about that one and the concept of "legislated science.")

I'm beginning to formulate an idea about how one can derive a measure of
the probable scientific merit of an [idea|theory|invention] by calculating
the ratio science:litigation.  Newman's little machine is hardly the only
current example of people attempting to have non-science or bad science
legislated or adjudicated into acceptance by science.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
   ...Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.